Oktoberfest Munich 2009

As an observer at this year’s Oktoberfest in Munich, I was able to be a sober onlooker at the events of the world famous Oktoberfest.

Our group consisted of four of Todd’s teammates, and two of their girlfriends. We decided to travel to Munich by train, we were told to meet at the train station at 5:45am to catch the 6:00am trail to Munich. As we all found our seats on the train, one of Todd’s teammates proceeds to pull out 3 six packs of beer. Now, my initial thought was that the group would drink the beers before we entered the festival, which would most likely be around 11am. (Even still, I thought that 11am was way too early for drinking.)

At 6:02am Todd’s teammate begins to open the box of beers and starts to pass them around, one for each person. By 6:04 just as the train begins to roll along the tracks, all 6-group members begin toasting and drinking. Thus was the beginning of our Oktober festivities.

While making our way to one of the “world famous” beer tents, I couldn’t help but notice the similarity between children and adults. You have sugared rushed kids stumbling from one carnival booth to another in search for their next candy to win and devour. Then you have the overly intoxicated adults acting like children stumbling from one beer tent to another in search of their next beer to consume. The irony of it all is that whether you were an adult or child, come nightfall, the designated family member or friend would be forced to baby-sit.

Finally, the beer tents the loud, colorful, smoky, and overly crowded beer tents. I had no idea how we were going to find an open table for 7, considering there were people standing everywhere due to the lack of seat and open tables.

So, the guys devised a game plan:
The guys decided to use us girls as bait. Our job was to find the table with the most men, and then us girls would use our womanly charm to get them to ask us to join them at there table. Then eventually, we would have our guys squeeze in, leaving no chance for the other guys to continue flirting with us, thus resulting in them leaving, and us having a table.

Well, the first part of the plan seemed to work like a charm. Second part, not so much, the men could care less if we had boyfriends or if we were married, they immediately bought us drinks and came in close so there was no easy way out for us girls. We respectfully declined the drink, and said that we needed to use the restroom. After their playful objections to our departure, we finally made it to a table the guys snagged up. By this time, the guys were already 2 drinks in.

After a few hours of singing along with 4,000 other drunken tent mates and dancing on tabletops, and after consuming about 4 gallons of alcohol between the 6 people in our group, the night was officially over.

All in all, as and observer and not a participant in Oktoberfest, I’d have to say that it was TOO MUCH:
Too much drinking, singing, talking, laughing, eating, toasting, smoking, yelling, dancing, spending, touching, flirting, groping, kissing, cheering, stumbling, falling, slurring, peeing, playing, barfing, fighting, punching, and resulting in the police arresting.
But, I guess you can never have “too much” of a good thing. Great time! Even better memories… Check it off the list!